One of my New Year’s resolutions was to continuously try new quilting techniques.  A local quilt shop offered a class on how to make one of Laura Heine’s floral collage quilts.  Needless to say, I jumped at the chance!

I chose to make Potpourri the giraffe but Laura’s patterns are all stunning!  My quilting buddy, MJ, made Lulu the elephant.  One woman in our class made Freida the fox and another made Purrfect the cat.  We are having a class reunion at the end of March to show off our completed works and I will get pictures of each quilt to share with you.

Below is a picture of Potpourri’s head and long neck.  BUT I’ve decided to rename her “Gracie“.  Can you see Gracie’s eye?  It is the center of a cone flower from one of the many floral fabrics I used.

I started Gracie by taping the pattern to my kitchen counter — she is a seriously big girl!  Then I traced the pattern onto voile fabric backed with a double sided iron on adhesive.

Next came more fun!  I had to back all my floral fabrics and grass pieces with more double sided iron on adhesive.  Then I had to cut out many, many flowers.  I was binge watching Chopped on Food Network and just kept snipping away.

Once all my flowers were cut out, I cleared the dining room table and started  placing flowers and leaves all over Gracie.  By the way, rocks work great for paper & fabric weights!  Rocks are always handy when your son is a Geologist and your husband is addicted to rock collecting — but I digress!

My husband said Gracie’s neck looked like a stack of sliced cucumbers with all those green and pink flowers so I had to do some rearranging!

I used some really large, bold flowers and then surrounded them with smaller flowers, seashells and paisleys.  This process took me several days but it was so worth it!

Here is a close up of Gracie’s tail.  Since these pictures were taken, I’ve added more flowers to her back and legs.  It’s kind of addicting — just a little flower here, another one there to add more dimension and texture –it’s not that I’m obsessed with flowers or anything like that!

I can’t wait to show you my background fabric and Gracie’s final runway look!  Stay tuned for more awesome art quilt inspiration!